Music on Mondays (9-21-15)—If you’re lucky, I’ll be there

My senior English teacher in high school was Edith Head, but not THAT Edith Head. She taught me to use the shortest words, the fewest words, and the shortest sentences possible unless I had a specific purpose in mind. When the class inquired why, she said it was because short and few would ensure that our writing was read by the largest audience possible. What she was saying was that people couldn’t read long words and long, complicated sentences.

The first literacy surveys were done in 1935 and showed that the average reader was an adult reading at a late seventh-grade level. Reading levels have remained roughly the same but at least have increased to a ninth-grade level in eighty years.

So I don’t know whether to be happy or sad with all the emails I’m getting recently with people reaching out to me….

“I am reaching out to you today….”

“I thought I would reach out to you to see if you are interested….”

“Would you like to reach out to hundreds of people each day?”

“We are a company that reaches out to our customers….”

“Reaching out to your customers is good for your business.”

“Do you use email to reach out to your customers?”

“I wanted to reach out to you to see how you liked our products.”

In the days of old, we used to contact someone, either call them or write them a letter.

“Reach Out, I’ll Be There” would work as “Call Me, I’ll Be There” but imagine if Blondie had sang “Reach out to me” instead of “Call me”……………….

And now you search your brain for every single word she ever uttered in class. What a wonderful experience.
Oh, literacy levels? For a long time national news was geared to a 7th grade reading/comprehension/vocabulary level.
Anyone involved with textbooks at all – writing, editing, publishing, selling, using knows the current books are vastly different for today’s students: more colorful pictures, less print on the page, simplified vocabulary.
The readability target may vary by regions/school districts but we found In the mid 70’s the average 8th grader was reading 1-2 grades below 8th grade. By the 90’s 9th graders were generally reading at a 6th grade level. The 6th graders were below grade level reading by 1-2 grade….worse was the information coming in that the upcoming batch were reading at even lower levels.
A great deal of research has been done preK-3rd grade about teaching reading and how children acquire language. A great deal of money spent. (Little kids are easier for researchers to work with as they are more “honest” in their responses, want to please, more pleasant in general, and there’s a lot of fed. money for this age group.) Older kids are less cooperative – and the reasons why they can’t read or write more complex. (A&M, UT, UH as well as Ivy League schools are involved with the literacy issue)
Lack of vocabulary lessons K-12, little emphasis on standard English and grammar in writing assignments, (To really improve to mastery, students really need to write by assignment and those must be analyzed/graded with suggestions for improvement every single week ). Little attention is being paid to the reality that students are arriving to schools in grades K-12 with few English language skills and often little or no formal schooling in their own country. This is especially difficult in grades 5-12. In secondary schools. New arrivals may be a mix of privately schooled kids and street kids who are often illiterate in their own language, so trying to use transference from knowledge of their first language into English is almost hopeless.
It’s a mess. All these kids are growing up and looking for jobs. Really concerned about the low literacy level. It affects everything.
No longer funny when older people laugh and say “Oh, I was always a terrible student, but next to these young kids, I look really smart.”

No because I’m not the grabbing type. Many times the subject line will tell me that I am not interested. For example, I’m not interested in having sex with any Russian girls, not interested in the Hair Club for Men, not interested in Viagra from Canada………………..

I don’t like the whole “reaching out to you” meme because it’s more a marketing tool then a honest desire to connect with another person. Going for numbers instead of connection. Makes me crazy. I’m more apt to respond to someone who’s “contacting” me rather than someone who’s “reaching out to me.” To me, there is a sense of insincerity or even stalking. That’s how it hits me anyway. 🙂